I still like Helion… but not for a power plant. Instead, this is an interesting route to a fusion drive.

This is also a very good channel. It is worth watching his other fusion videos first.

A short humorous analysis of challenges with the fusion approach of Helion Energy.

00:00 — Introduction.
01:03 — Low reactivity.
02:55 — Neutrons.
05:33 — Bremsstrahlung.
06:17 — Diagnostics.
06:57 — Conclusion.

References.
[1] https://www.helionenergy.com/
[2] “A New Way to Achieve Nuclear Fusion: Helion”, https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38
[3] https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/ALPHATeamPanel1_DavidKirtley.pdf.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-reversed_configuration.
[5] S. Atzeni and J. Meyer-ter-Vehn, “The Physics of Inertial Fusion” (OUP, 2009). ISBN: 9780199568017
[6] Data also available from: https://scipython.com/blog/plotting-nuclear-fusion-cross-sections/
[7] The first high-speed colour video from the COMPASS tokamak.

[8] K. Hagiwara et al. (Particle Data Group), “Review of Particle Properties” Phys. Rev. D 66, 010001 (2002), Section 28. “Radioactivity and radiation protection” retrieved from https://pdg.lbl.gov/2002/radiorpp.pdf.
[9] https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/ending-trenta-operations/
[10] Chernobyl 4th reactor core after the explosion.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Chernobyl_exploded_4th_reactor_1986.jpg.
[11] https://www.iter.org/mach/HotCell.
[12] https://www.iter.org/mach/Diagnostics.
[13] M. Maslov et al., “Status of the JET LIDAR Thomson scattering diagnostic” JINST 8 C11009 (2013).
[14] J. Kilkenny et al., “The National Ignition Facility Diagnostic Set”, LLNL-TR-666418 (2015).
[15] B. Wang, “Helion Energy got funding for possible breakeven fusion device this year”, Next Big Future (2018), https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/10/helion-energy-got-fund…-year.html

A google researcher was put on leave because he apparently believed his AI project had become sentient. Dr Mike Pound discusses.

https://www.facebook.com/computerphile.
https://twitter.com/computer_phile.

This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.

Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: https://bit.ly/nottscomputer.

Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran’s Numberphile. More at http://www.bradyharan.com

Ultra Safe Nuclear’s radioisotope battery would power orbiting satellites.

Canadian quantum computer company, Xanadu, has used its photonic quantum computer chip, Borealis, to solve a problem in 36 microseconds versus classical supercomputers taking 9,000 years. This is 7,884 trillion times faster. This runtime advantage is more than 50 million times larger than that of earlier photonic demonstrations.

An earlier quantum photonic computer used a static chip. The Borealis optical elements can all be readily programmed.

Borealis is accessible to anyone with an internet connection over Xanadu Cloud, and will also be available via Amazon Braket, the fully managed quantum computing service from AWS.

“Aim high. We have always achieved what we wanted to, never in the timeline. We fail on timeline, but that feels like the right fail to make as oppose to not achieving what you are trying to achieve technically.”

In this View From The Top, Christopher Stromeyer, MBA ’22, sits down with Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX, to discuss balancing ambitious goals, putting people on Mars in a decade, leading collaboratively, and why she likes making decisions with data.

“You face adversity and I think the only way to get through it is to understand the situation to the greatest extent you can and then be honest with yourself. Pick a path and do it and don’t be afraid to say you made a mistake if you make a mistake,” says Shotwell. #viewfromthetop #podcast

As scientists prepared in 2010 to collapse the first particles in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), media representatives imagined that the EU-wide experiment could create a black hole that could swallow and destroy our planet. How on earth, columnists rage, could scientists justify such a dangerous indulgence for the pursuit of abstract, theoretical knowledge?

In the simplest terms, superconductivity between two or more objects means zero wasted electricity. It means electricity is being transferred between these objects with no loss of energy.

Many naturally occurring elements and minerals like lead and mercury have superconducting properties. And there are modern applications that currently use materials with superconducting properties, including MRI machines, maglev trains, electric motors and generators.

Usually, superconductivity in materials happens in low-temperature environments or at high temperatures at very high pressures. The holy grail of superconductivity today is to find or create materials that can transfer energy between each other in a non-pressurized room-temperature environment.

It was a big year. Fermilab discovered possible evidence of new physics with the muon G-2 experiment. Physicists created a time crystal, a new phase of matter that appears to violate one of nature’s most cherished laws. And we got a glimpse of an enormous pair of bubbles towering over the Milky Way. Read the articles in full at Quanta: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-physics-20211222/

Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation.

He has done his math. The questions seem to be: How to put together viable payloads to make use of Stsrship launches? How to build new markets in space?

This again?! Game Over? Busted? We’re doing Starship again so soon because I’m an unoriginal hack. There’s also been new developments in Starship and I think it’s a perfect time to revisit the launch system. Get as mad as you wish.

Will Starship live up to expectations? Will it really revolutionize space travel? Is Mars and beyond finally within grasp? Why are Musk’s fans so strangely devoted to him? Will I stop asking dumb questions?

Corrections, Clarifications, and Notes.

1. Jesus Christ I forgot about Dear Moon again. It’s clear that Starship probably won’t be human-rated by NASA by 2023. The FAA, if I remember correctly, doesn’t regulate commercial crew vehicles (like airplanes) yet. You could always do a Crew Dragon to Starship for that or something along those lines. I’d anticipate Dear Moon being pushed or somehow incorporated into an HLS demonstration.

2. I’m not bringing up the early test program this time around. SpaceX has clearly gotten better at building tanks (though I suspect Starhopper was mostly a publicity stunt).

3. I didn’t include government launch contracts because those end up more expensive than commercial payloads due to more stringent requirements and specialized missions.

4. I didn’t talk about SpaceX finances since they’re private information. The Morgan Stanley valuation was made by people who I’d argue don’t know anything about the launch market. Their assessment is nonsensical. Also, I doubt SpaceX is making much money as a commercial launch provider—the launch side of the space industry is small; if it weren’t for Starship and Starlink, they might. It also appears that SpaceX is adept at burning cash, considering all the fundraising they do. It’s hard to say without industrial espionage.

DeepMind’s model, with just 7 billion parameters, outperformed the 178 billion-parameter Jurassic-1 transformer on various language tasks.